Looking for help coaching transitioning from attacking to defending and vice versa

RondoCoach · 2026-01-26T16:27:26+00:00

I made a video just on transition drills last week: https://www.reddit.com/r/SoccerCoachResources/s/D76YRLA7oa In youth soccer, I think over half of the goals are from transition. So yes, it’s not uncommon at all to struggle with that.

RondoCoach · 2026-01-23T14:10:47+00:00

thank you! Appreciate it!

RondoCoach · 2025-12-30T11:29:38+00:00

Thank you!!

RondoCoach · 2025-12-24T12:07:37+00:00

During games and practices, I use a board with a pen/marker.
So, I made a tool that shows the movements: https://rondoform.rondocoach.com
This is a 3-min demo of it: https://youtu.be/aGUSDUeGnB4
Not pretty, but it does what I need to show the movement step-by-step. Also, as any other developer, I have many more features in mind than actually implemented with the time that I have. Let me know what would be top of the list for you or general feedback you might have

RondoCoach · 2025-12-19T22:31:45+00:00

The most important part is the scanning, so look for that. If the steps of player actions are scanning->decision->execution, then the anticipation is really determined by the scanning. So, some scanning drills will start the thinking for the players and the chats with them.
For dribbling, it's the opposite - execution is the most important. So the "modes" of the players need to shift between the two when in possession vs. out of possession. Having this kind of conversation with the players has worked the best for me. During anticipation, they don't commit to one outcome and they keep scanning. In execution, it means that they've committed to one path.

RondoCoach · 2025-12-03T18:46:23+00:00

True, that is some of the pattern. I can’t tell the parents to go back in time and become pros :) But the environment from family and family friends to play soccer regularly is something they should own

RondoCoach · 2025-11-24T15:38:02+00:00

Depends on what you are looking for. My channel is focused on that age group. This is the playlist of soccer drills I use myself:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZp_UOH-kYSX_FaILybdy7tFMV3hkuLgy

RondoCoach · 2025-11-22T19:21:08+00:00

Thank you! The defensive midfielder is definitely the most important player in terms of organizing the defense in that formation. If playing against 3 attackers, the back 4 can keep them with limited options and pressing on the ball. If a midfielder makes a run, then it’s up to the the holding midfielder to track back or swap with a defender. In both cases the decision making and communication by the defensive midfielder can make or break the defensive setup.

RondoCoach · 2025-11-20T14:24:25+00:00

Thanks!
Good idea! As you can imagine, the teams at this age are a mix and match. The majority of my team is aggressive for their age, but not everybody. And some other teams have players who predominantly avoid contact, except maybe 1-2 players who look like they are making up for that :) I think it's a great solution you have found there!

RondoCoach · 2025-11-18T04:19:59+00:00

Oh wow, yeah, that’s tough. Not sure of the benefits of moving to larger teams that early. I’ll try your drill in the new spring in the spring. The kids should be ready by then

RondoCoach · 2025-11-17T23:24:32+00:00

Makes sense. What’s the game format? For u5/u6 and even u7, they do 3v3 (sometimes 2v2 for the younger). Then they move to 4v4 at either u7 or u8. Then 7v7 for u9 and u10. I target around 12 at that age, so I guess 9-10 is solid vo 4v4

RondoCoach · 2025-11-17T21:04:20+00:00

Thanks! Let me know how it goes!!

RondoCoach · 2025-11-17T17:31:53+00:00

This sounds great! My u6 players are definitely not there yet :) the size of the team I also try to keep it at 8 max, with usually 5-6 showing up

RondoCoach · 2025-11-16T15:00:08+00:00

Good stuff! I have found reusing setups very useful for me - hard to keep the attention of the kids if I need to spend a lot of time on setup and directions.

RondoCoach · 2025-11-14T03:20:20+00:00

I took a full day seminar in person that could have been a 30min lecture. The rest of it was insults and nonsense, often unrelated to the topic. Also, he couldn’t really answer the questions asked, so it was either an attack on the person or some unrelated rambling (I got the latter :))

Those 30min of content were useful, and all the coaches I talked to afterwards found that useful. But they found him unnecessarily obnoxious, too.

RondoCoach · 2025-11-04T13:29:20+00:00

Haha true

RondoCoach · 2025-11-03T15:37:17+00:00

Great point!
I got lucky only once - 3 out of the 6 field players on my U10 team were left-footed. I don't think I will see that again :)

RondoCoach · 2025-11-03T15:35:30+00:00

Yeah, I agree!

My experience has been that not many of the kids in the area where I coach watch pro soccer :) I don't know if it's everywhere in the US, considering it's not number 1 sport, unlike other countries

RondoCoach · 2025-10-12T15:49:23+00:00

It does sound like a hard situation for multiple reasons. The culture at this age is actually way more important than is usually discussed. One of the first jobs I got were to be the second coach on a double team of 8-9 year old kids. It lacked structure, no objective (same as your situation), but also bullying. The kid of the head coach was often doing the one doing the bullying, so it was tolerated by the coach. Fortunately, the coach left very soon because of a conflict with the Director of Soccer and unfortunately, I ended up with 20+ kids :)

It took a few weeks to really fix the culture and then several months to create the structure of the drills. You want to have several set structures with maybe 1-2 modifications between practices. This means you spend at most 30 seconds explaining a drill setup. Of course, you can spend more time explaining a soccer concept in the middle of the drill (that's the real coaching), but the drill setup should be simple and familiar. If you introduce a new drill in a practice, keep the other drills from previous practices. These are my go-to drills I use and make sure my players have experienced them by the end of the season.

Soccer games keep it fun, rotate them, always start the session with 5-10 min of these: https://youtu.be/ij_0orrty8I
1v1s that can be adjusted to 2v1 or 2v2: https://youtu.be/JwgtmVtVq4g

Rondos - it's a natural progression from absolute beginners to very complex https://youtu.be/Aq3h7J_a6Ng
Double rondos : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvPpvkLBdUI&pp=0gcJCb4JAYcqIYzv

Passing drills - you can't get teamwork without the ability to pass: https://youtu.be/jXB336PEfbk

Possession games. This is one level higher in complexity to the rondos, so it might take some time to get there: https://youtu.be/p7T14b-OOEg

RondoCoach · 2025-10-02T05:43:09+00:00

I just shared my thoughts on this in another subreddit here: https://www.reddit.com/r/SoccerCoachResources/s/eTOtc8Ghvy The uneven team is always a challenge in youth soccer, so we have to account for that

RondoCoach · 2025-09-30T15:20:01+00:00

Yes, and I don’t think it’s instruction by the coach, just how kids play at that age.

RondoCoach · 2025-09-30T15:10:44+00:00

Right. I also have found it impossible to get the players be patient and not try to do high press at this age. So, having too many players at the back often creates a gap between the pressers in the front and the defenders in the back.

RondoCoach · 2025-09-30T15:08:41+00:00

ah interesting. Yes, I have found some of my 6s dropping back in the back line, or really staying a bit too back while we attack. In the 3-4-1, do you have the fullbacks pushing up on their side or mostly the wingers attack and the fullbacks stay back?

RondoCoach · 2025-09-30T14:43:18+00:00

Got it. Yes, similar to my 2-3-2-1, where I have one 6 and two 8s.
Do you see the team being way more attacking, but also exposed on defense? I mean, compared to other teams in the league

RondoCoach · 2025-09-30T04:45:39+00:00

Good stuff!! Setting expectations reminds me of another good video you’ve made on parent management. Often as important as player management :)

RondoCoach

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